Turkey’s ecological spotlight: Hrant Dink Award meets hard realities for environmental reporters

Istanbul — On 15 September 2026, the International Hrant Dink Award put ecological defence at the centre of Turkey’s civic calendar. The same week, European press-freedom documentation again underlined how costly — and legally fraught — environmental and urban reporting can be for Turkish journalists.

An award that centres land and ecology

The eighteenth International Hrant Dink Award ceremony at Istanbul’s Harbiye Muhsin Ertuğrul Stage named Süheyla Doğan of Turkey a laureate alongside Palestinian human-rights lawyer Raji Sourani. The Hrant Dink Foundation cited Doğan for refusing to abandon defence of the Kazdağları (Mount Ida) region and its natural and cultural resources, advancing women’s human rights, speaking out against state-backed ecocide projects, and championing the right to live with nature.

Doğan is an environmental and life advocate, not a newsroom journalist. The journalism angle is contextual: a major rights award has elevated ecological conflict into mainstream Turkish and international coverage at a moment when reporters who investigate mines, forests and urban land deals describe systemic barriers.

What environmental journalists say they face

In an interview published by the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF) while she was in the Journalists-in-Residence programme, investigative reporter Hazal Ocak described environmental and urban journalism in Turkey as chronically under-prioritised relative to politics, even as climate impacts intensify.

Ocak said colleagues struggle to obtain public information despite constitutional access rights (including via the CİMER system), face takedowns of published stories, and confront lawsuits that function as SLAPPs. She recounted multi-year litigation, including a case linked to a complaint by Presidential Communications Director Fahrettin Altun that sought a lengthy prison term before an acquittal that was then appealed; and a separate insult/slander fine tied to reporting involving Bilal Erdoğan that she has taken to the Constitutional Court. She frames such cases as designed to exhaust reporters.

Stockholm Center for Freedom, citing Reporters Without Borders (RSF), has also reported Turkey among countries where journalists covering environmental harm — including deforestation and mining — face legal harassment, referencing complaints against dozens of Sözcü-linked journalists.

Why this matters for green journalism

Awards that honour ecological defenders expand public language about land and climate. They do not, by themselves, secure press freedom. Ocak’s testimony suggests Turkish green journalism still depends on alternative outlets, mutual solidarity at hearings, and mentorship that teaches young reporters to connect local destruction to the wider climate crisis.

Careful framing

Readers should not conflate Doğan’s advocacy award with a journalism prize. The newsworthy link for a Green Journalism desk is the information ecosystem: high-profile ecological recognition arrives alongside documented legal and access pressures on the reporters who try to verify environmental claims for the public record.